Economic language and iPod cases

So I went downtown yesterday.

The strength of the American consumer is supposedly what drives this economy. If the crowds at the Apple Store on Powell were any indication, the American consumer remains quite strong. I mean, I totally saw the American consumer bench like 13 MacBooks. It was sweet. And the American consumer looked confident, too. I bet the consumer I saw yesterday would have no doubts about approaching the hottest hottie in the club.

The rhetorical strategy (locution? metaphor?) that politicians and the press have decided to beat to death during the current crisis is the making of comparisons between “Wall Street” and “Main Street.”

Says Pelosi, “We must insulate Main Street from Wall Street and keep people in their homes.”
Says Obama, “We have to make sure that whatever plan our government comes up with works not just for Wall Street, but for Main Street.” 
Says Ron Paul, “This is Wall Street in big trouble and sucking in Main Street, now, and dumping all the bills on Main Street.”

Hopefully they’ll figure out how to mix up their language a bit before this one gets as grating as “blood and treasure” did during the Surge debate. And is “Main Street” really the appropriate contrast to Wall Street at this point? Aren’t most Americans pretty disconnected from the classical Main Street of soda fountains and general stores? We need something that recognizes the greater influence of the suburbs. Something like, “Wall Street vs. Red Cedar Lane.”

Anyway, I was in the Apple Store because I wanted to acquire a new armband-capable case for my iPod. The one that fell apart last week is the second one to die. And it turned out, that despite two large walls of cases for portable Apple devices, plus a stockroom full of surely a fair number more, they did not have a case that would suit my needs. You see, I have an older iPod. It was purchased all the way back in January of 2007.

So I bought a 1 GB Shuffle, which is only cost about $15 more than a armband-capable case would have anyway. Hopefully it will last longer than my last Shuffle, which quit connecting to the laptop about two months after purchase. I brought it into the Genius Bar and was told that nothing could be done for it, given that the docking plug looked like it had been corroded due to moisture. Apparently taking your Shuffle out in the rain is not recommended.

When I am dictator…

…my first act will be to outlaw the Charlie’s Angels pose.

Sudden intimacy

1. NW flight 354 leaves at 3:54 p.m.

2. Even though I aim to be an unsentimental, future-minded cosmopolitan, I still feel a twinge of a sadness when I consider that the hometown brand, Northwest Airlines, will soon be only a memory.

3. Aisle seat. Pros: Easy exit, not flanked on both sides. Cons: Elbows get bumped when the cart comes by, nothing to lean against, have to get up if the center or window seat needs to use the lavatory. The last con can place limits on the duration of your naps.

4. The game will kill my battery, I don’t feel like writing any more, and the captain says that we’ll soon be descending, so I put away my laptop and start to space out.

I look around. “The loneliness” has waxed and waned in seemingly random fashion over the years. It’s been showing up more regularly these days, and it seems to be spiking in this moment. My eyes are grabbed by anything you might call classically feminine. I catch myself staring at the curve of a hip that is hinted at by the jeans of the woman in the aisle. The suggested form of her torso sets my heart racing. The woman in the center seat, while repositioning herself, bumps me with her elbow. I get a little electric surge from this touch.

Oh, how embarrassing to be set off so easily, to be given a significant jolt by this minor and accidental contact. At least, I think I’m supposed to be ashamed of being like this—that it’s unseemly to have, and even worse to reveal, these aches. But fuck it, it’s real, and it’s a big deal. My perpetually relationshipped acquaintances have told me not to idealize their state, and I’ve thought that some of their reasons for this position are valid, but I think that they should then not idealize the single state in return. It frustrates me when they seem to not grasp what loneliness feels like, or how crazy-making it can be. It’s survivable, but it doesn’t feel very healthy.

It’s late, the lights are dim, and I’m resting my head against the seat in front of me. The woman in the center seat is slouching and has her legs up, so that her shins are pressed against her seat-in-front, and so that her knees are at eye level when I turn my head to the right. Again, my attention is drawn to anything about her that differs from its male counterpart. The leg, much more slender than mine, that is just below eye level. I’ve noticed, lately, that the things women do to themselves in the name of beauty, once seeming just frivolous and bizarre, have become so attractive to me. The painted toenails at the end of these legs.

I sit back again. She turns to me and expresses surprise at the fullness of the flight. I respond that, actually, I’ve taken this flight many times, and it seems just as full as always. Underneath her comment was the assumption that we all live in City A, and are coming back from a visit to City B. I note that I actually live and City B, and am heading for a visit to City A. She notes that at one point, she also lived in City B. We discuss neighborhoods we both know. She asks after, and I answer with, the purpose of my visit to City A.

The conversation fades. She starts it again by saying she’s “bummed.” A friend had emailed her about the latest incident in his decaying marriage. This incident had involved a strange sort of violence, which she described to me. She is bummed because for years she thought that he was entirely the innocent party in this troubled marriage, but today, in the new email, the friend revealed that the violence was his wife’s response upon finding him texting with another woman.

I ask why she moved from City B to City A. She sighs and replies that it was to be near her husband. She elaborates. When she was away this week, she was asking herself if she really missed him. She went to a party and mentioned to someone her surprise that of all the men in City B, she married him. He’s put on a lot of weight in the last two years. He plays video games all the time. If he wants to avoid surgery for a health problem, he needs to do these exercises. He keeps saying he’s going to do the exercises, but then he never does. If she had to do it again, she wouldn’t get married, just stay committed “without the paper.”

When I was your age, we had to transport our TCP packets by hand, uphill, both ways

I’m back in Mpls, surfing the web from my parents’ house for the weekend. “Man, this internet connection is crazy slow,” I think. So I run the Speakeasy speed test to the Chicago server, expecting a result of around 200 kbps. And yet,

1.3 Mb downstream, .7 Mb upstream.

Methinks my frame of reference has changed a bit.

Classic Concentration

Photos by Flickr users (top to bottom): Roadsidepictures, Kevin Steele, 123 look at me

I used to be better at being alone

At first, the title of this post was to be its thesis. Then, after thinking some more, I decided it was a claim I could not support. I did this thinking while walking around the apartment, picking up beer bottles and microwave dinner trays when I was in the living room and setting them back down when in the kitchen. I eventually came up with this revised claim: I used to be better at not realizing I was bad at being alone.

The first version of the thesis came to me while I sat on the couch. The TV was on, as usual. The Olympics, of course. Trampoline! It’s kind of cool. I wish I could do that many flips in midair. Hell, I’d be happy with one midair flip.

But even though Olympic trampolining is pretty cool, I was sad. (Awwwwww.) And I wondered why I was feeling that low mood pit again. It’s Saturday! I don’t have to work! On Thursday and Friday, I was looking forward to Saturday. Like the everybody of yore, I work for the weekend. I was looking forward to the weekend because, unlike last Saturday, I was taking today off. No obligations. And, I thought, a young man in possession of a free Saturday in a great American city should be de-lighted. So why the frowny face?

Well, I thought, it’s probably because you’re alone. The apartment is empty. The fogginess in your neighborhood probably doesn’t help. You don’t have any plans.

I’m sad because I’m alone? How did this happen? I used to be good at being alone. I used to take pride (silly, silly pride, so stupid but we’ve all had dumb thoughts in our youth, no?) in my ability to exist solo. I was proud that I wasn’t scared to go to a movie by myself. I was proud to be brave enough to not give a damn if someone thought me pathetic for being alone in a restaurant during a customary social dining time.

So what’s the deal? Why should I be sad to be alone today, given my abundant experience with the state? This is when I came up with the second version of my thesis: I used to be better at distracting myself while alone. I’m not sure I was ever good at being alone; rather, I think I was just worse at recognizing when I was failing at being alone.

If I go downtown, and go to a movie I don’t really want to see, would that be an instance of successful aloneness? In that I’d feel better, yes. But in that I’d just be passing the time, and not really accomplishing anything I cared about, no. I’d feel better, but only because I’d distracted myself. It’d just be wasted time.

My top priority these days, after my thesis project, is to be better at being together, and to be together more often. But I’d still like to be better at being alone. This might entail, as discussed in my last two posts, learning to turn alone into together. Or this might entail finding more hobbies. If I had more things I passionately wanted to do by myself, I’d feel less like I was failing at being alone. I always feel embarrassed that I have so few hobbies—that my answers to “What do you do with your free time?” are always so weak.

Why don’t I just call someone? I dunno. I do know people here. When I looked out the window a few minutes ago, I saw an acquaintance dropping a letter in the big blue mailbox across the street. I have enough self confidence these days to say that this acquaintance likes me. I have said things in his presence that have resulted in his laughing. Why don’t I attempt to contact him, setting aside the fact that it’s already Saturday afternoon? Or anyone? Well, folks, that’s a long story, and my patience for this is starting to run out, as usually happens when I pass the 600 word mark. I think the story can be summarized thusly: While I have greater confidence in the desirability of my company than I used to, this confidence is still not great enough.

I’m outta here. Don’t worry about me, I’ll find something to do. Perhaps I’ll go “explore the city.”

Coffeehouses, cont’d. Bars, too.

Belle takes note of my previous post, sympathizes with my reluctance to approach strangers in coffee shops, describes her conflicting feelings about being approached, and encourages me to start the conversation next time.

My itchy trigger finger hit “Publish” on that post before I explained my reasons for not moving further forward. CharleyCarp comes up with a defensible one in his comment: Eye contact alone is not necessarily an invitation to converse. I was genuinely uncertain that she wanted me to approach.

I’ve been attempting to acquire an awareness of nonverbal cues over the past couple years. My long-standing mode of operation has been to only become aware of positive evaluations of me if they are put forth in unambiguous words. In the past, I would have considered it a brazen overinflation of my worth as a human being for me to even think that a woman who merely shifted her eyes my way might be interested in talking to me. In the past, if she had wanted to talk to me, she would have had to explicitly repudiate my low self-regard by walking over to me and stating, “I would like to talk to you.”

It should not surprise the reader that this did not, to the best I can recall, ever happen. (This self-doubt is, of course, also very self-centered, as it is experienced without considering the feelings of the other person enough to realize that she may have self-doubts of her own.) It should not surprise the reader that the blogger has not lived a life filled with romantic success. So I’ve tried to start learning how to handle ambiguous positive signals. Hence, my standing in coffee shops coaxing myself to allow for the possibility that, despite my disbelief, that eye contact may actually have meant something.

CC confirmed Conservative Me’s hunch that a shared gaze alone means little, and suggested for the future a gradual escalation via a small smile.

Before I move on, some words on the fear of rejection. Naturally, one response to my hand-wringing would be that I should damn the torpedoes and move straight to an attempt at conversation, despite the ambiguity of the signal. Such advice is often followed by a “Rejection won’t kill you” or perhaps by a “What’s the worst that could happen?” And it’s true, rejection doesn’t kill. And yes, I do admit that part of me probably was afraid that an overture would lead to unpleasant feelings, and that those feelings would knock away the good feelings that my obligation-free morning had brought me. But I’ve also been wondering if that stock take on rejection is flawed because it doesn’t give sufficient weight to the feelings of the rejector.

Specifically, wouldn’t an unwanted advance make her uncomfortable? What about the good feelings that her quiet morning in Starbucks might have been bringing her? I mean, she was probably no wilting flower, and thus could probably have executed one brush-off with aplomb, but what if this happened day after day? Wouldn’t I be helping to create an unpleasant environment for her? CC’s advice seems good, and so next time I’ll just take the intermediate step of smiling a bit. I’ll start looking in the mirror and practicing my non-threatening smiles.

Here’s where I attempt to justify the above silliness by trying to go all Bowling Alone on this shit. My questions are:
1. Assuming there ever was one, is the culture of casual encounters in public places (no, I don’t mean that, but I delight in leading your mind there) falling apart? Did it used to be common knowledge how to approach a stranger in a coffee shop? Or is my ignorance here just a sign of my being an outlier freakazoid, rather than of a larger trend?
2. Where in the past were these skills acquired? I learn about social skills from blogs. Blogging was invented well after humans started breeding. What did I miss growing up that has left me so unprepared? In the thread at her place, Belle mentions getting social instruction from women’s magazines. These have been around longer than blogs, but they were also invented after sexual reproduction. To what extent has explicit instruction always played a role in the acquisition of social skills?

I’ve always assumed that social skills were acquired primarily through implicit learning, and that I somehow lacked sufficient intuition and didn’t have the experiences (with failures of intuition leading to deliberate avoidance of future experiences) necessary to acquire them.

I started to think more about what I’ll call “structural problems,” however, that same night at the bar. I was gchatting with HH before heading out to meet some friends at one of our standard haunts, and she asked how I would react if a “cute girl” talked to me while I was out at the bar. This led me to consider how I’ve never had (and presently lack) a group of dudes with whom I went to bars with the aim of “picking up girls.” Are such groups common? I was out with three guys on Friday, one of them partnered, but talking to strangers was never on the table. There was no consideration of whether or not we were in a “target-rich environment” (cf. Top Gun). There never is. So at the bar, it occurred to me that in lacking such a group, I might be missing out on another traditional source of social instruction. Obviously, I’m a lot of fun at bars.

(I realize this all reads like a parody of someone like me. You are free to laugh. But this is the sort of analysis I find myself going through routinely as I try to fill in the gaps in my social skills as an adult.)

A coffeehouse, a right-branching NP, and some eye contact

I, in a sense, played hooky today. It was only hooky-in-a-sense, or a sad excuse for hooky, because I’ll be going in to do an experiment tomorrow. I’ll be doing an experiment tomorrow because it will be my last chance to do one for ~3 weeks, because on Monday our lab is getting shut down for ~3 weeks. Fortunately, the lab getting shut down is not my fault, nor is it the fault of any other human, so far as anyone can determine. Fortunately after those ~3 weeks, we should be back up and running, no harm, no foul.

So the morning started with my attempt to attend the summer picnic on Angel Island that The Aviator’s Medical Institute was hosting today. Because I was too lazy to plan, and because the F-Market always takes longer than you think it will, I arrived at Pier 41 at 9:55 a.m., which ended up being not early enough to catch the 9:45 a.m. ferry. Upon seeing that the next ferry on weekdays is at 1:20, I realized I would be skipping the company picnic.

Unfortunately, I realized this after I had thrown away my Muni transfer. I checked my wallet pockets and realized that I did not have another $1.50, so I went looking for a business where I could break my $10 bill by purchasing a product I desired. I found a Starbucks.

Item 1: When I am in a Starbucks and am feeling frivolous and gay, I tend to indulge in a Grande Mocha Frappuccino. Lately I have been trying to reduce the number of calories I consume, and as such, I have started ordering on these occasions the Light variety of this drink, without whip. All fine and good, right? But there is a problem! The problem comes when I try to convey my desires to the barista. Since I am a native speaker of English, it is my instinct to place adjectives before the nouns they modify. So when I want to add a new modifier, “Light,” to the phrase “Mocha Frappuccino,” I want really badly to place that modifier first. I yearn, my friends, to order a “Light Mocha Frappuccino.” And so that’s typically what I ask for.

But the baristas do not like this! Nowhere in the city do they tolerate this! As you likely know, it is Starbucks SOP to confirm the customer’s order by repeating it back to him or her. When I order a “Venti Coffee,” the barista will repeat “Venti Coffee” back to me. But they do not say “Light Mocha Frappuccino” back to me. Instead, they say, with politely didactic intonation, “Mocha Frappuccino Light.” And if you look up at the menu, it does say “Mocha Frappuccino Light.” WTF? That’s such a fucking unnatural-sounding construction. Why, Starbucks, why? Why do you insist on this awkward word order? I mean, it’s not as if, when I desire the aspartame-sweetened take on Coca-Cola, I am expected to ask for a “Coke Diet.”

I’ve even tried to remember to use the baristas’ preferred word order, in the spirit of “when in Rome,” but I must be incapable of doing so, as I continue to make this mistake almost every time I indulge in a frivolous Starbucks moment.

Item 2: I picked up my drink. I realized that because I now had no place to be for several hours, I could, if I wanted, idle in the café. I looked around the room and suddenly found my eyes to be in contact with an attractive young woman who was sitting in the corner and working on what appeared to be homework. The eye contact lasted, I believe, several hundred ms, and after being broken by a saccade or two it was restored for another couple hundred ms. I saw that there was an empty table next to the young woman. I started to walk over there, thinking, “Ah hell, maybe I should go sit by her and talk to her. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do in these situations?”

I stood a foot from the empty table for about two seconds. I almost sat down. Then I thought the better of it, spun around, and headed to a nice isolated table outside.

Way-too-long SF Marathon race report, 8/3/08

Background

Back in February I ran the Kaiser Half Marathon in 1:39-something. I was happy with this. Then I kinda didn’t run for awhile, proving to myself again that I am incapable of regularly running if I don’t have a current goal race. Then in April I went to dinner with some friends and some friends of a friend. At said dinner, one of the FoaFs announced that he was going to run the marathon. I got caught up in the spirit of the moment and announced that I would too. There was much enthusiasm.

We Facebook-added each other and I turned some first-timer training schedules into Google Spreadsheets, and sent him the links. It is unclear how much training the FoaF did and it don’t know whether he ran the race; we sort-of lost touch. Exit FoaF.

Training

I used the “slightly harder” first-timer schedule from The Competitive Runner’s Handbook. This is a 16 week, 5 runs/week schedule that peaks at 40 MPW and lacks prescribed paces. I started with 15 weeks to go and followed the remaining schedule largely unmodified. I figured this schedule would be a conservative choice and not too hard for me to complete, as the schedule I had followed while training for my last half had, IIRC, peaked at 35 MPW and had included speedwork and tempo runs at what were for me somewhat aggressive paces.

I probably completed 80-90% of the scheduled runs, with most of the skipped runs being short 3-4 milers that were scheduled for the day after long runs. Training was pleasantly injury free, and my right knee actually complained much much less than it had during some of my half training cycles. A final note is that the long runs in the middle of the schedule were my first runs over half marathon length. These were interesting. I learned what the wall felt like on the 18 miler, probably as a consequence of a) Climbing Conzelman Road midway through the run and b) Forgetting to take a second gel until I had already bonked. Man, that’s a bizarre altered state of consciousness. You really do go, within a matter of minutes, from feeling fine—in the “I’ve been running a long time and am hence kind of tired” sense of the term—to being in a half-aware daze and extremely tempted to stop and walk. I learned my lesson and refueled more aggressively in subsequent long runs and during the race.

Speaking of which, this is a race report, so perhaps it’s about time I moved on to that topic. Maybe I should switch the present tense, too. Yeah, that’ll, like, totally pull you along and make you feel like you were there.

The Race

Night before to start

Pasta’d up, courtesy the culinary stylings of a generous friend, I put together a 4.5 hour playlist for my iPod (you want to err on the long side, as it would be horrible to run out of music just when you need inspiration most) and climb in bed at about 10:30 p.m. I find myself surprisingly not nervous. And tired. Sleep comes easily and largely stays with me until 3:55 a.m., when the alarm goes off. Naturally, it’s still dark out. I pop up, note that my sleep seemed awfully short, note again how strange it is that we can have a sense of the duration of our own unconsciousness, and put on my shorts, shirt, HRM, Garmin, iPod, Fuel Belt, socks, and shoes. Morning nutrition is a 20 oz Coke Zero and two energy bars.

At 4:20 a.m., DR and KM pull up, and I hop in. We remark on the bizarreness of the situation. I note that mountain climbers start doing their hobby at still crazier times. I am again bitter that they insist on running this thing on the stupid Golden Gate Bridge, which if I understand correctly is the reason SFM starts at such an absurd hour (first wave is at 5:30).

At the Embarcadero, we split up, and I head back to Wave 6, which is scheduled to start at 6:05. This is the sub-4:30 wave. I attempt to clear the GI and urinary tracts to the best of my ability, and shiver about while watching the sky go from black to slightly-brighter-than-black. The emcee prattles on about how stoked we should all be, and this, and that, and then gives a shout out to our troops. This shout out gives me my sole bit of of pre-race mirth, as in giving it, he addresses it to all the soldiers fighting in “Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan.” I snicker, but no one else seems to have caught the flub. I pass the rest of the time by taking note of the fit bodies in tight clothing.

My plan was to follow the 4:15 pacer for the first half, and then try to move ahead if I have the energy in the second half, so while waiting, I am periodically looking around for him.  Supposedly, he will be starting with my wave.

Woo, 6:05! They’re letting us go. Still no sign of the pacer. As we cross the starting line, the emcee announces, “Your pacer is … already out on the course.” Oh well, guess I’m doing this on my own.

Miles 1-4

An easy trip along the Embarcadero through the Wharf and past Crissy Field. I barely take note of these miles and fall into a mid-9 pace. OK, this is satisfactory. Just need to finish. I pass KM and her AIDS crew. Familiar faces are always nice. I see the bridge. Hmm. It seems we’re actually going to run a fairly long way toda.y

Miles 5-10

Probably the toughest part of the course. We go up the hill from Crissy to Fort Point, over the bridge and back again. My interior monologue becomes that of the jaded quasi-local. The bridge is crowded, as usual. And windy. And come on, what’s that point? It’s always foggy up here this time of the morning in August, so it’s not like there’s a view. It’s too crowded to pass, as there are only two lanes in each direction.  Oh well, probably boosts participation, enhances prestige, etc. I’m down with civic boosting. While Marin-bound I see AD heading back the other way. Hmm, I didn’t realize she was running this. Of course she is. She even mentioned it at that one party. Anyway, no way am I going to catch her.

Meanwhile, I’m still keeping it around 9:30, which is good enough. I see the 4:15 pacer headed the opposite way. OK, so he probably started 10 minutes ahead of me; if I make it back to this here in 10 min, I’m doing well.

Hmm, I think I made it back there in 10 min.  Lovely.

Around mile 10 I get a bit of a high that I’ve been getting whenever I hit that distance lately. Some feeling that comes from being impressed with myself for having gone pretty far and still feeling strong. That feeling evaporates when we start heading up Lincoln Blvd along the ocean. I hate this fucking hill. I make it to the top, and take a bathroom break. Eww, that’s some disgusting shit (literally) in there. I’m glad I don’t work in the portable toilet industry. Isn’t this bizarre that, we punish ourselves for no particularly good reason and then someone’s going to be left cleaning up the shit? Class issues, Rome is burning, etc.

Miles 11-14

Woo, downhill! Love the downhill. I run my fastest mile of the race: 8:09. OK, that’s not going to happen again. Just a big hill. Hey that’d be pretty cool if I could make it through the half in 2 hrs, as given that the second half is easier, 4 hrs might be attainable. We run through the Richmond and turn into Golden Gate Park. Bathroom break two at the halfway point, 2:01-something. Portable toilets in better condition. Waste another minute futzing with my Fuel Belt. Fucking thing.

Miles 15-20

What the fuck? Why is that guy going so fast? Oh, he’s in the first wave of the second half. OK, don’t get spooked. Just pay attention to the tired people. Dude this park is long. I am so lost. Where the hell are we? I totally know Golden Gate Park; why am I so disoriented? Shit, do we have to go around Stowe Lake? Yeah, we do. Fuck. Man, I always forget how hilly this road is. I remember running a 5K here. How quaint.

Shit, is this park ever going to end? It’s kinda uphill too. Why do I have no sense of where we are? More fast people. Ignore ignore ignore. First half finish line on left. Steal a banana? Can’t eat a banana right now. Finally, terrain I recognize! Almost out of the fucking park.

Woo, downhill to the Lower Haight coming up! Mile 20. Interesting that I seem to have been running sub-9s without struggling too much. Could a sub-4 be doable? I’m at about 3 hrs and 6*9 = 54 minutes, so quite possibly. Don’t get the hopes up, though. Hopes are simply things that get crushed.

Miles 21-25

OK, this isn’t so bad, given the circumstances. I never want to drink any more fucking lemon-lime Cytomax and I gag on the energy gel I eat. Listen body, I’ll never make you consume this shit again. Just keep going. Nothing feels like it’s going to fall apart, but I have to be careful. Somehow, the sub-9s keep coming.

And then we hit Potrero. Back and forth and back and forth and will this ever end? Alright, waterfront. That’s progress. Wow, is that AD up there? It is. I catch up, pull the earbuds out and ask how she’s doing. “I’m sucking balls!” is her answer. “I’m fucking tired” is my response. I simultaneously experience sympathy and smugness and pull ahead. Goal time is presently more important than camaraderie.

Shit, do we have to go around the fucking ballpark? Shit, I guess we do. Man, can’t we just get this thing over with? No more fucking looping around shit!

Mile 26 + .2

Looping around the fucking ballpark. Hmm, an All Star Game commemorative plaque. Hmm, a Barry Bonds home run #756 commemorative plaque. Nice to live in a city where things are going on.

Yeah Embarcadero! Almost there! Dude on the street, I hope you were right when you said there was a half mile to go. Watch reads 3:56-something at the final mile marker. Awesome, totally got this in the bag. Ever the vain finisher, I try for a strong “kick-ette” as I approach the finish line. Yep, still got some juice left. I cross the line, and am quite pleased to see 3:58 on my watch. Chip time: 3:58:07.

Recovery

I’m quite surprised at how not-sore I feel. I expected to be much more dead yesterday and today. I’m certainly not going to run anytime soon (one of my goals is to force myself to do something new and different with my free time during the recovery period; e.g., volunteerism) but I’m definitely contemplating doing a marathon again. CIM, a popular marathon in Sacramento, is December 7th.

Accidental learning via Wikipedia: Banned

Perhaps it would be fun to log some of the “random” things I learn while browsing Wikipedia. Today’s lesson: A commercial airline can be banned from entering the airspace of the entire European Union. This is done if your airline is “operating below essential safety levels.” So it’s perhaps a bit different from getting banned from a blog or from all Woolworth’s (can’t find a relevant YouTube clip, unfortunately).

Most of the airlines on the list are based in African countries. Also included are air carriers based in Central Asia, North Korea, and Indonesia. Every airline regulated by the relevant Indonesian authorities is banned from EU airspace, in fact.

Path taken: DC-9, UM Airlines, List of air carriers banned in the European Union.